The Calm of the Storm
by inked-jaeger
Summary: How Keigo and Ryoma move on. Sequel to Wry, and Awry. All the poetry in this is Pablo Neruda's.


_Well, now,_

_if little by little you stop loving me_

_I shall stop loving you little by little._

* * *

"I'm guessing your phone call worked wonders."  
Ryoma turns a ragged gaze upon Atobe. "Shut the fuck up." He tosses his cellphone onto the bed, unable to keep touching it.

"He's not coming back, is he?"

Thing is, Atobe wants to hear Ryoma give up. It's cruel, considering Ryoma suffered the most because of Shiraishi - but he can't help it.

"No. He's not."

"Well, then, that's that," Atobe replies sunnily. "Care for a match?"

Ryoma breaks down into tears, the tears he had kept in check during the phone call. Atobe reaches for him, because despite the taunts, despite his need to prove himself right, he loves this boy, he loves this boy so much. "He's gone," he says into Ryoma's hair. "He's gone."

It feels to him that if he says it over and over, he can pretend it's a dream. Make something unreal. Usually, people do this to set an event in stone, make it real, but he isn't one of them. He does this to deal with the pain. The pain that hasn't come yet, but will - because Atobe had let himself hope when Ryoma had pressed _call_.

It was stupid of him. Of course. Because what's worse than losing hope the first time?

Losing hope the second time. Everything becomes so, so tangible, even your despair. Everything is clearer. Brighter. You see life in a new light. You can touch each individual dust mite in the air, though they always flew around you before. You can read an old hated book and begin to love its nuances. You can want to die and still want to live. You can feel useless, hopeless, worth nothing, but worth everything.

Ryoma's fists, clenched in his shirt, loosen. He's close to falling unconscious. He's that exhausted. Atobe kisses his lips lightly. Ryoma whispers, "I'm so sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," Atobe whispers back.

* * *

_Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness._

_and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar._

* * *

"Best of luck, darling," Atobe tells Ryoma before they leave the house for the tournament. Ryoma takes his hand and kisses all his fingers in turn: thumb, index, middle, ring, little. "We're going to kick all your asses," he says. "Watch out."

Atobe only laughs, because the rest of the Hyotei team hasn't slacked off at all, unlike their idiotic, heartbroken captain.

They go to their schools. And then they go to the tournament tennis courts. On the bus, Ryoma and Tezuka sit together. It isn't by Ryoma's choice. Tezuka comes up to him and sits down beside him without asking for permission or announcing it beforehand. Momoshiro has to go sit with Kaidoh (they butt heads and bicker like children for the time it takes to reach the courts).

They don't talk. They don't discuss tennis strategies or the new moves they've come up with. The topic of Shiraishi Kuranosuke is the elephant in the room - or bus. But Inui is across the bus aisle, Inui Sadaharu, Tezuka's lover, so Ryoma saves his jibes for another day.

Ryoma tries not to think about Kanpeki. He knows Shitenhouji isn't in their block. He probably won't see him today. It's nice, knowing he won't have to see Shiraishi. He won't have to see whether Kanpeki's happy now, or sad, or angry, or empty. He won't have to worry about his own reactions. He won't have to judge Shiraishi again and again.

* * *

Meanwhile, Atobe sits alone, having downed a paracetamol before the ride. He's not well. He's ill. He's an idiot. His emotional stress is taking its toll on his body. He shouldn't be playing tennis right now, but there are only so many people he can disappoint. Nobody sees the bags and the dark circles under his eyes. Nobody sees the trembling hands and nauseated countenance. Nobody sees a thing except their same old beloved admirable arrogant asshole captain with the talent to back up his words... not even Ryoma.

As they all descend from the bus after they reach the venue and approach the registration counter, green and yellow uniforms come into Atobe's line of sight. Fuck. Why now?

He has the strength to keep walking with his head held high - he _struts_ past the Shitenhouji team with his own. His confidence is palpable. He's fucking fine without one of his lovers. He's going to win this fucking tournament with the energy it takes to clip his toenails, because heartbreak is selfish and ephemeral.

Invariably, his gaze meets Shiraishi's. It's kind of scary, because he can't decipher the look in Shiraishi's eyes. This stare is a stranger's stare. It's terrifying; only months ago, this stranger was his entire life.

So Atobe _smiles_ at him.

The stranger smiles back.

Atobe's eyes are drawn to something off which the sunlight shines - Shiraishi's ear. Metal piercings. When did Shiraishi get them? One of them has an embedded diamond. He looks so good, he's glowing so brightly that Atobe's heart skips a beat with longing. It's one of the worst feelings in the world.

So he tears his eyes away from Shiraishi, to the person beside him, shorter; and staring at him nonchalantly, but also fiercely, defiantly, proudly. He has ear-piercings too.

Oh.

It isn't until Atobe looks away from the both of them that it clicks in his mind that Shiraishi has found happiness with that shorter person. His smile freezes on his face, but nothing changes. Nothing else changes, until he is at a safe distance from his ex-lover. Then he excuses himself from the team gathering and runs behind the nearest building to heave, throwing up his breakfast.

Forced down to his knees, he can't breathe. Retching and choking. Some of it comes out through his nose. His nostrils are burning. His mouth tastes foul, acrid. And there's more. He vomits again. Unable to breathe in. He coughs weakly, then faints, face deathly white.

Kabaji, who followed him there like a guardian angel, takes one look at him and positively dashes to get help, water, towels, medicines, anything to make his best friend better, his best friend has never been this ill and pathetic - Kabaji is panicking and seeing him all of Hyotei present at the courts panicks and even Shishido, of all the pseudo-heartless people in the world, becomes a mess when he sees the state Atobe is in behind that building and everyone is in tears because _Atobe-buchou_ and an ambulance is called and Atobe is taken to a hospital while the rest of Hyotei stays back despite wanting with all their hearts to be with their captain and they win all their matches 6-0, win the tournament for their Atobe-buchou.

* * *

Atobe wakes up in a hospital bed with his teammates and Ryoma in various stages of sleep around him, all in cheap plastic chairs, and is ashamed of himself. He is so ashamed of himself for being this weak. The nasogastric feeding tube doesn't let him speak, and he wants the earth to crack open, right there, and swallow him and the bed.

He notices that there's one other person in the room, and that the person is looking right at him.

He doesn't need Shiraishi to be there, but Shiraishi is there all the same.

Kanpeki simply looks at him. He doesn't speak, lest the others wake up. They just look at each other with impassive faces, until Shiraishi gets out of his chair with the grace that Atobe remembers as one of his characteristics, and leaves.

Things are never the same after that. Atobe figures it was a dream or hallucination, because no one remembers Shiraishi being there.

* * *

It isn't fair how they're not okay. Where is the justification that explains why the cheater is fine and the cheated are not? Shiraishi moved on, but Atobe and Ryoma are still in pieces. Their relationship is shattered, and they only hold on because they love each other too much to let go. They love each other so much that Ryoma has all of Atobe's mole locations memorized, that Atobe knows and accepts all of Ryoma's quirks, that when they fuck at night they take the time to kiss out their love confessions.

Why is Shiraishi okay? Where did he get the strength?

Why is Ryoma not okay? Why is Atobe not okay? They're not unforgiving, never-forgetting nitpicking jerks (but while they forgave, they can't forget). They know they're to fault. Is that why things are the way they are?

Why can't Ryoma not remember the presence of another person in his bed? Why can't Atobe stop making three cups of tea instead of two?

It's their routine shaken up that brings the realization home to them. It doesn't hit them like a ton of bricks or a Wile E. Coyote anvil; it creeps up on them like an early morning winter fog.

* * *

"Let's go on a date," Atobe tells Ryoma.

Ryoma smiles at him, surprised. And very pleased. He picks the hotel/restaurant without inhibitions as it's Atobe's wallet footing the bill, and they have a nice meal at a five star hotel. Both are dressed accordingly. Atobe seems to be in his element. Apparently, he knows every single other customer in that hotel. Clients. Wow. His boyfriend's a famous, social piece of shit.

They don't talk about the fainting incident.

Ryoma, on the other hand, is decidedly uncomfortable with his shirt and trousers, so Atobe, while having small bites of his dinner, casually tells him that he'll be taking them off later.

He keeps his word as they collapse onto a bed in the same hotel, not keeping more than an inch's gap between them. Atobe has more fun than usual making Ryoma forget his own name, and Ryoma loves the attention.

Keigo loves it when Ryoma buries his fingers in his hair, pulling, curling his fingers around the fine, silken strands, running his fingers through them. He gasps and moans right along with Ryoma.

Afterwards, Atobe pulls Ryoma in for a tight hug, planning to fall asleep like that. Ryoma throws a leg over Atobe's thigh and dozes off. Atobe takes time to fall asleep. He spends that time kissing Ryoma's skin.

When they wake up in the morning, things are almost perfect. They have slow, careful morning sex with all of the love they haven't shown each other in months. They wash each other's backs in the shower and don't remember Shiraishi at all.

Atobe gives a present to Ryoma. It's a platinum ring with a solitaire diamond on it. He's proposing to Ryoma for a marriage they legally can't have, but Ryoma says yes anyway.

Ryoma doesn't notice the engraving on the inside of the ring - _I love you simply, without problems or pride_ \- until a month later, when he's playing with it and comparing it to the brightness of Atobe's happy face. He smiles so hard his jaw starts to hurt, and his heart swells up so much and he sighs in pleasure, grinning stupidly at Atobe.

He looks up Pablo Neruda on the internet later, and one day whispers a line in Keigo's ear before they go their respective ways to school -

_I want_

_To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees._

Such words should have sounded strange coming from a teenager who hasn't quite grown up, but Atobe has never really cared.

They hug before they part. Atobe buries his head in the crook of Ryoma's neck. Their pseudo-marriage feels realer. Ryoma has the ring on a silver chain around his neck, hidden by his collar.

They look at each other differently, now. They can forgive each other, and they have one, just one person to thank for that.

* * *

Zaizen comes to talk to Ryoma one day at school. They dance around the topic of Kanpeki/Kuranosuke, trading smartass comments, tennis tips, trivia about the members of Higa Chuu, before Ryoma gets tired of indirectness like he always does, and says, "What do you want to ask?"

"Why did you love him?"

Ryoma inhales slowly. That's a strange question. But he has a strange answer for it.

"Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies. Oh the mad coupling of hope and force in which we merged and despaired."

Zaizen laughs, because he doesn't understand. Maybe he does. Maybe everyone in this world is gripped by Neruda's words. Fuck you, too.

"I just want to know."

Ryoma doesn't want to talk about it. He stays quiet. Zaizen looks at him out of the corner of his eye.

"It's okay," Zaizen ventures eventually. "It's okay."

Ryoma still doesn't say anything. Zaizen sighs, and pulls out a DS. Ryoma takes out his own. They play Super Mario Bros. for a while. Zaizen beats Ryoma in every game.

"Was he as beautiful with you as he is with me?"

This is a stranger question than before. Ryoma has stranger answers this time, too, but he decides not to indulge himself by quoting poetry that is too great to soil for childish taunts.

"Why are you trying to provoke me?"

"Petty jealousy."

"Go back home, child."

Zaizen laughs. "He's okay, now, if you care."

Ryoma smirks back at him. "What gave me away?"

Get up and leave while you're ahead. Ryoma does exactly that.

Zaizen isn't the villain in this. There is no villain in this. Everybody's the victim and everybody's at fault. Life sucks. Get with it. Stop looking for villains to take the fall.

His life doesn't suck anymore, but Zaizen isn't somebody who needs to know.

He goes home and tells Keigo nothing about what happened. They clean the kitchen together after they eat, talking about things like university and adoption.

* * *

The sun hasn't risen over the horizon when Keigo wakes up.

Ryoma is sprawled across the bed (and him), snoring quietly. Keigo records a ten-second video of him using the phone that's on the nightstand, and then thinks for a long while.

He thinks about so many things. Why is the universe still expanding? What is beyond it? Do the protons and neutrons and electrons of Atobe's body know that they belong to Ryoma? Does Karupin know the secret to life?

Does Ryoma know why Shiraishi won't come back?

Because Atobe knows. Atobe has known for a long while.

Ryoma and Atobe keep secrets from each other because they think they're protecting each other. Maybe they are. Maybe they're not.

Atobe looks at the diamond ring on Ryoma's chain. Ryoma treats it very casually. Atobe isn't complaining. That diamond ring is a promise that they never really needed to make. Atobe has been searching for chapels that allow same-sex marriage. Ryoma doesn't know about that, either. He'd be very happy if he did.

His train of thought meanders onto the topic of... surprise, Shiraishi. He's reached a point where Shiraishi Kuranosuke is a faceless name he knows nothing about. He's forgotten Shiraishi's favourite colour (bright green) and he doesn't know that Shiraishi's really good at Chemistry and he's definitely really forgotten Shiraishi's expression when he's a second away from... ecstasy.

Fuck.

He buries his face in his palms, suddenly teary.

This ache in his heart worries him. It threatens to never go away.

He makes a grab for the boy sleeping beside him. Ryoma comes docilely to Atobe's side. "Fuckface," he mutters in his slumber. Atobe snorts. Only Ryoma would do something like that.

"I love you so much, so much."

"Shut up and let me sleep."

"I think about running my hands all over your body. I think of placing myself in the space between your skin and your heart. I think of marking you with my mouth."

Silence.

"I think of spending days with you naked in this bed, doing nothing but talking. I think of my arms around you. I think of fucking you when you're biting down on your ring. I think of your beauty and I'm left breathless. I think of your body and soul and I wonder if I have all of you - "

"Of course you do. And instead of just thinking about it, maybe you should actually do it."

Atobe leans over Ryoma to see his face. Ryoma hides it, but Keigo sees the cute frown and the red blush.

He acquiesces.

That day, Shiraishi comes to see them. Atobe and Ryoma have no expectations from his visit. He's here to collect all the old stuff that he left behind.

Seeing his face brings back memories they'd rather not keep. Seeing his face makes their hearts throb with pain.

Kanpeki (for he will forever be perfection to them) is surprised at how much they've changed the decor of the house. He looks sad. Well, whatever.

Ryoma and Atobe linger around him as he packs the clothes and the books and everything. They stare at his hands. They stare at his neck. They stare at his legs. Shiraishi knows. But he puts on no show.

Ryoma is remarkably strong. He doesn't cry, even when Shiraishi asks if they could just sit down and talk. About life.

He tells them about Hikaru. He tells them that he's happy, and that he's so very sorry. Ryoma accidentally tells him to shut the fuck up. Shiraishi laughs.

Atobe laughs quietly into Ryoma's hair, hiding it. He's so proud. So proud of Ryoma, who is finally, _finally_, over it. He had the luxury of having the time to grieve. He had the luxury of allowing himself to grieve. Atobe's kind of the more independent one in this relationship. After the hospital incident, he never looked back, just so Ryoma _could_.

Shiraishi looks at them properly, then, after they're done laughing. Somehow, despite all his casualness in the past hour, he has the same look of longing in his eyes that they do. They see it in each other because they're hiding the same thing.

Like it was fated to happen, like an invisible force propels them, they move to the same couch and curl up against each other - breathing in and out quietly. They had thought it was the end, with that phone call. But they were too busy mourning to realize that things don't ever really end abruptly. Their goodbye was left - and here it is, here is their grand finale, a long hug on a familiar couch.

Shiraishi embraces them tightly. No kissing. No sexual contact. Just traces and shadows of their old intimacy. He doesn't tell them anything. Atobe has all but melted into Kanpeki's side, and Ryoma is on his lap, with his face against his chest, facing Atobe. They stare at each other with Shiraishi's arms around them. They hide nothing. Ryoma doesn't cry. Atobe smiles at him, the smile full of happy and sad tears.

They don't know when, or how they separate. They don't know how they walk Shiraishi to the door, how Shiraishi turns to them and says _goodbye._

They don't know how they shut the door after seeing him walk away and go back to their day, to their life. They just... do.

They just feel a deafening stillness in their hearts. The raging storm has passed. The roaring, lashing waves have subsided. Their heartbeats are steady, not irregular. The calm that washes over them is not scary. It is welcomed. Atobe and Ryoma acknowledge the true ending with a peace that is stunning.

It is not a happy ending.

The best love stories in the world are tragedies, or so said some man. Whatever. Theirs wasn't the best love story if it ended like this. Not the best, but it was raw and powerful and beautiful and compelling. It forced them to sit up and take notice. It forced them to accept that - they loved the other two with their soul. They won't be best friends, now, but they can take comfort in the fact that, perhaps, this, _this_ is what true love tastes like. Not love at first sight. Not dying for each other, not mind-blowing sex every so often. Not knowing every bit of trivia about each other.

Perhaps true love is the aftertaste. The love recognised in hindsight. The thing that doesn't have a name till it's gone.

That. That is what they had. Probably. They're not poets. They don't know anything about such matters.

But still, Ryoma whispers into the air, for Keigo's sharp ears, _I no longer love her, that's certain, / but maybe I love her._

Keigo whispers back, _Love is so short, / forgetting is so long._

And they resume their daily routine with tranquillity.


End file.
